250 Cookbooks: A Treasury of Bake Off Favorites

Posted on February 21, 2014 by admin

Cookbook #54: A Treasury of Bake Off Favorites. The Pillsbury Company, 1969.

This is another of my mother’s Bake-Off Cookbooks. So far I’ve done three Bake-off years: 1964 (Cookbook #4), 1959 (Cookbook #10), and 1963 (Cookbook #27). I refer you to the 1964 blog post for a more thorough discussion of these cookbooks/pamphlets.

This pamphlet cost 98¢ (the 1959 one cost 25¢). Inside the front cover, “Ann Pillsbury” writes:

“In eighteen years of Pillsbury Bake Offs certain recipes have stood out as being all time “favorites”, as judged by our own staff and by the requests we get from homemakers everywhere. We have chosen ninety-five of these ‘favorites’ for this collection.”

So, some of these recipes are repeats from earlier Bake-Off collections. To me, the most famous cookie in this particular Bake-Off Cookbook is “Peanut Blossoms”. Yup, the peanut butter-sugar cookie topped with a chocolate kiss. My mother made these, I made these – and I already entered them into this blog. My mother also tried and liked the Jim Dandies, Hoosier Peanut Bars, Chocolate Macaroon Cake, and Dilly Casserole Bread. She liked the cookie recipes best! This cookbook also includes main dish recipes. They are “okay” but not my kind of cooking. Too “fifties”.

My choice to try is a cookie recipe called “Spicicles”. As usual, I am looking for something a little healthy. While this recipe includes a lot of butter, it is relatively low in sugar, and it includes raisins, walnuts, dates, and candied pineapple. The preface to this recipe suggests these as holiday cookies, and they are reminiscent of Snowballs, those buttery-nutty cookies baked in formed balls and then rolled in powdered sugar while warm. We always made them at Christmas. (The recipe that I have used for years for a snowball-cookie is Dainty Nut Balls, exactly like this online version.)

My thought for Spicicles is that I can use them like energy bars for mid-day boosts on exercise days.

Now, candied pineapple: I think the recipe means the candied pineapple sold around Christmas time for fruit cakes. My idea is to use dried pineapple, one of our favorite ingredients in trail mix. It’s sold in most stores, with other dried fruits like raisins.

Then I hit the jackpot. I decided to check the bulk bins at Whole Foods. And I found these thick rings of pineapple, dried and coated with sugar, for only $3.99/pound. I filled a bag partway, then took a tiny taste while still in the store. Yum! I topped off the bag – this stuff is great. I can hardly wait to try this pineapple in the cookies. Heck, I can hardly wait to leave the store and munch on a few pineapple rings on the way to the car!

I made these pretty much as called for, except I used more pineapple, fewer raisins, and more spices (and fresher spices!). Below is my version.

Spicicles PLF
makes about 60 small cookies

2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup powdered sugar (“confectioners’ sugar”)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg, preferably freshly grated
1 cup butter
1 egg
1/2 cup raisins (sultans might be nice)
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup chopped dates
3/4 cup finely chopped dried pineapple

In mixer, beat the butter with the egg until well blended. Add the flour, powdered sugar, salt and spices and blend well. Stir or mix in the raisins, nuts, dates and dried pineapple.

Form into balls, using a teaspoon to scoop up the dough. Bake on ungreased or parchment-lined baking sheets at 350˚ for 12-15 minutes. The bottoms will brown, but the tops of the cookies will remain kind of pale. Don’t worry, they will be done!

Transfer the cookies to a wire rack, and when they are just cool enough to handle, roll in powdered sugar.

Here is the wonderful dried pineapple alongside the walnuts, dates, and raisins:

I searched my spice cabinet for cardamom, and found an old jar of ground cardamom. Sniffed it – seems to be missing its punch. But I had a jar of cardamom seeds, so I ground some in the coffee grinder that I reserve for spices. Perfect! Below are the cardamom seeds and a half-grated nutmeg:

The cookie dough is pretty thick and rather dry, but it does hold together. I ended up making 61 cookies – pretty close to 60!

Here are the baked Spicicles PLF (PLF? that’s my “tag”):

These were a hit! I took them for mid-day energy snacks and always . . . wanted another one! I didn’t think my husband would like them a lot, but when I suggested a frozen (lite) ice cream bar for dessert, he looked at me and said “I really like those cookies, I’ll have them instead!”

It was pretty easy to go through those 61 cookies. I will make them again!

250 Cookbooks: Knudsen Recipes

Posted on February 17, 2014 by admin

Cookbook #53: Knudsen Recipes for greater food value. Knudsen, Knudsen Creamery Co. of California, 1953.

Knudsen is a California dairy product company. Currently it is owned by Kraft Foods. When I grew up in our Southern California home in the 1950s, our milk, cottage cheese, sour cream and other dairy products were usually the Knudsen brand. My mother acquired three pamphlet-cookbooks from Knudsen; this 1953 one is the oldest of the three.

This is the first cookbook I’ve come to in which I can’t find a single recipe to try. A coffee cake using prepared biscuit mix and no spices; cream cheese cookies with a lot of butter and watercress; codfish and cottage cheese casserole; casserole a la tuna; chipped beef rarebit; summer soup with chopped cucumbers and cooked beets in a cold mixture of buttermilk and sour cream: I say yuck just reading the titles. Oddly, a recipe for fried bananas is in the main dishes category. Who could trust a book like that? Many recipes are overly laden with butter and sour cream.

The cookbook stresses the health benefits of dairy products, especially yogurt, hoop cheese, and buttermilk, and includes a calorie chart that’s a whole two and a half pages long.

My mother tried the raisin pie and marked it “pretty good”. That’s the only recipe she tried from this book. One more than I’ll try!

Here is the recipe I consider about the worst in this book – Wiener Cheese Floats:

To satisfy my obsession with cooking a recipe from every cookbook that I cover in this blog, I will share a couple of my own long-time breakfast recipes that are variations on two recipes in this book: Cheese Blintzes and Cottage Cheese Omelet.

When I have leftover crepes, I often make something very similar to these blintzes for breakfast. I call them Cottage Cheese Crepes. This is a one-person recipe:

2 crepes
1/4-1/2 cup cottage cheese
cinnamon to taste

Heat a non-stick pan, then wipe it with a small amount of oil or spray with non-stick spray. Spoon cottage cheese down the center of each crepe and sprinkle with cinnamon. Roll them up and cook in the pan until lightly browned on both sides and the cottage cheese is melting. Sprinkle with more cinnamon if you like. (Note that I skip the sour cream and butter in the Knudsen recipe, lessening calories.) I drizzle my cooked crepes with a little lite syrup.

The Cottage Cheese Omelet calls for separating the eggs, combining the yolks and cottage cheese, then beating the whites and folding in the yolks/cottage cheese.

I make something a whole lot simpler using the same ingredients. I take an egg and mix it with 1/4 cup cottage cheese and cook the mixture like scrambled eggs. I have these about once a week, and have for years. I’ll call them Cottage Cheese Scrambled Eggs.

1 egg
1/4 cup cottage cheese
green onions, chopped (optional)

Heat a non-stick pan; brush with a little oil and wipe clean. Break the egg into a bowl and add the cottage cheese (and onions if you wish). Mix with a fork, then pour into the heated pan and cook until the egg mixture sets.

I like to serve these with a muffin and some orange juice. Sorry the photo is kind of crummy. It was very early, and pre-coffee, and I wanted to EAT! No time to play around with camera settings.

And the muffin? That’s my own recipe for banana muffins.

250 Cookbooks: Vegetarian Planet

Posted on February 11, 2014 by admin

Cookbook #52: Vegetarian Planet. Didi Emmons, The Harvard Common Press, Boston, Massachusetts, 1997. This is the second of my five vegetarian cookbooks. (The other one I covered in this blog is 1000 Vegetarian Recipes.)

I do like this cookbook! Great presentation and illustrations, personal notes, and recipes I’d like to try. Since I first bought this cookbook, I have been exposed to Thai and Mediterranean cuisines, so that many of the recipes I might have passed over in 1997 are now very interesting to me. The author claims a fondness for cheese, so it is not a vegan cookbook (a plus!).

This vegetarian cookbook is not bossily telling readers to give up meat. Instead, the author talks about how the flavors of herbs and spices come through clearer in meatless dishes. At the time of publication (1997), the author notes how US markets are seeing an influx of new food items from other countries. Many foreign cuisines use less meat and more grains, vegetables, and spices. That’s exactly what we found to be true on our recent travels to Turkey and to West Africa. Viva les légumes!

I am looking forward to trying some of the slaws, small bites, and dumpling recipes in this cookbook. A recipe for black rice cakes – now I can cook that “forbidden rice” I bought awhile ago but didn’t know how to cook. I want to try the recipe for Korean vegetable pancakes, and snappy snap-pea salad with sumac. (Can I find sumac in one of my favorite local stores? That might be an adventure.) There are over 500 pages of recipes in this book. What fun. And if I want more, I can go to Didi Emmons’ web site for more.

Unfortunately, the recipe I chose to try for this blog was not a hit. My mind was still foggy from our recent African travels, and I chose a recipe that I should have known my dining partner would not like. I enjoyed it, but probably will not make it again.

I loved the garlic flavor in this soup. It was both well-seasoned and filling. The piece of bread in the bottom was fun. But my dining partner took one taste, said “yuck”, and that was that.

250 Cookbooks: Hamburger & Ground Meats Recipes

Posted on January 12, 2014 by admin

Cookbook #51: Hamburger & Ground Meats Recipes. Better Homes and Gardens, Meredith Corporation, Des Moines, Iowa, 1980.

Hamburger ideas: More! This is the second hamburger-recipe cookbook I’ve covered in this blog. Ground meats are a mainstay in my freezer, great for easy and tasty mid-week meals. I’m always on the lookout for new recipes to try, even if I only cook the recipe once. “Variety is the spice of life.”

I’m going to keep this cookbook. Sure, it’s over 30 years old, but people ate well back then, too. I want to try the Crepe-Style Manicotti, Swedish Burgers, Greek-Style Crepes, and Sausage Quiche. I found a recipe for “main dish crepes” that I had been looking for for years. I was surprised to find recipes that incorporate feta cheese – I didn’t discover feta cheese until about ten years ago. I also found a recipe for “oven meatballs” that I think I used to make a lot. Baked meatballs can be low-fat, and meatballs freeze well, great for quick thawing to pop into a spaghetti sauce.

For this blog, I chose “Hearty Mexican Casserole”.

It wasn’t until I was halfway through cooking this dish that I realized it was a lot like the “Wyoming-Mexican Casserole” that I have been making for years. Sure enough, it is exactly the same recipe that I typed it onto an index card in the 1970s. I probably clipped it from a Better Homes and Gardens magazine. I remember it being touted as “John Wayne’s favorite casserole”. When I google that phrase today I come up with a different recipe, one with chiles and eggs and evaporated milk. I guess I was wrong about John Wayne.

I’m killing two birds with one stone with this blog entry, sharing a favorite recipe and covering one of my 250 cookbooks.

Hearty Mexican Casserole
or, “Wyoming-Mexican Casserole”
serves about 4

1/4 cup chopped onion (I used more like a half cup)
1 pound ground beef
3/4 cup finely chopped ham
1/4 cup taco sauce (I used a bottled, chunky salsa)
1 1/4-ounce envelope taco seasoning mix OR use 1 teaspoon each: cumin, chile powder, and oregano (preferably Mexican oregano)
salt to taste
10 ounces spinach, cooked (can use frozen spinach)
cooking oil
12 corn tortillas
1 cup sour cream
1 cup grated jack cheese

Cook the onion in a little olive oil, then remove them from the pan and set aside. Brown the ground beef (drain off fat if necessary), then add back in the onions along with the ham, taco sauce, and seasonings. Add the spinach and some water (about a half cup) and simmer 5-10 minutes.

Cook the tortillas in hot oil until just limp. Alternatively, you can steam or microwave the tortillas to soften them.

Spoon about 1/3 cup of the meat mixture on each tortilla; roll up. Place the filled tortillas, seam side down, in a greased baking dish (13×9-inch). Cover and bake at 350˚ for 30-35 minutes or until heated through. Uncover; spread sour cream over tortillas. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake for 5-10 minutes more, until the cheese is melted.

Comments

These are actually enchiladas. And they are good! Here is the mixture before it was rolled into the tortillas:

I made a half recipe and baked them in a 7×11-inch pan. I like these scrunched up next to each other. Here they are, ready for their first phase of baking:

And here they are, sour cream and cheese on top and baked, ready to be plated next to avocado-tomato-queso-fresco salads:

Time to enjoy a great meal!

250 Cookbooks: 1989 Best-Recipes Yearbook

Posted on January 4, 2014 by admin

Cookbook #50: 1989 Best-Recipes Yearbook. Better Homes and Gardens, Meredith Corporation, Des Moines, Iowa, 1989.

Admissions of a recovering recipe clipper . . .

I bought this cookbook in 1989. Back then I loved to buy women’s magazines and pore over the recipes. But I could not just let the magazines go straight to the recycling bin, I held onto old issues until I first clipped recipes to try. Eventually it got done. Eventually I read each clipped recipe and entered its information into a database. Eventually the cut up magazine went into the recycling bin. The clipped recipe went into a file folder. I still have these file folders and the database. That project is now finished.

Tired of my compulsive recipe-clipping addiction, I vowed never again to buy a women’s magazine. That was in about the early 1990s. I have stayed true to my vow. But, as a leftover, I have this book of Better Homes and Gardens magazine recipes.

I will now recycle this book. In the whole dang book, not a single recipe is marked by me. Although I did have a post-it with a seafood dinner plan on it, tucked on a page with a recipe for shrimp in a tarragon, garlic, sun-dried tomato vinaigrette recipe. I now have a much better version of a shrimp vinaigrette in my repertoire, so I can let this go.

The layout of this book glares at me like the glossy magazines I used to pore over. Promises of great food shown in fancy dining layouts with happy people. But the recipes in this book are mediocre. Today I saved only a couple recipes, one for a sweet-potato-chocolate swirled quick bread, and one for a seasoned ground meat mixture over home-cooked polenta.

And what did I decide to cook from the pages of this soon-to-be-discarded cookbook? “Orange Streusel Muffins”. I’m always up for another muffin recipe. Muffins are part of my daily eating plan! And these are a tiny bit unusual, with a jammy surprise inside.The above version says to make 12 muffins. As I was filling the muffin cups, I felt that I needed to fill them a little fuller, so I only made 8 muffins. My new 12-muffin tin from King Arthur Flour is great – it does not require any grease or paper liners and does not complain when I leave a few of the muffin cups unfilled. Next time, I’ll add more marmalade, so I incorporated this, too, into my version, below.

Orange Streusel Muffins
makes 8 muffins

Muffins

1 3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup oil
1/4 cup (or more) orange marmalade

Streusel topping

2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon softened butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons chopped pecans

Stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Beat together the egg, milk, and oil. Combine wet and dry mixtures, stirring just until moistened.

Spoon a generous tablespoon of the batter into 8 muffin cups, then put a generous teaspoon of marmalade on top of each. Next, spoon another generous tablespoon of the batter atop the marmalade in each cup. Finally, sprinkle with Streusel topping.

Bake at 400˚ for 20-22 minutes or until golden. Cool in the pan a few minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Yes, these are good. My dining partner loved the built-in jam. I liked warming them briefly in the microwave so the marmalade was warm. We both wanted: More marmalade!

My breakfast, awaiting only eggs and coffee:

These satisfied my New Year’s resolution: Everyday, I should eat something that makes me say “wow, I just have to have another bite!”

My kitty helping me to set up the shot:

Tori and the muffins

Hey, this is my 50th cookbook! I’m 20% of my way through this project!

250 Cookbooks: Bon Appétit Best Entertaining Recipes

Posted on December 30, 2013 by admin

Cookbook #49: Bon Appétit Best Entertaining Recipes. Bon Appetit, The Condé Nast Publications, Inc., NY, NY, 2004.

This cookbook came my way because I subscribed to the Bon Appetit magazine for several years. It was probably a bonus book for renewing my subscription.

I’d like to throw this cookbook away. Why? Because the content is such a jumble of types of recipes. “Entertaining” encompasses everything from appetizers to desserts, and every cuisine imaginable. Here’s what the authors say in the introduction:

“This collection brings together some of Bon Appetit’s very best entertaining recipes, organized by course for easy mixing and matching to help you design one-of-a-kind menus and unforgettable parties.”

I’m not a big party or entertaining cook. Most frequently, I’m looking for a “dinner for two” menu. But this cookbook is still useful to me, because a lot of the recipes have a little flare to perk up a Saturday night meal. I still find ideas in this cookbook, so I’ll keep it.

Here is a list of recipes in this book that I might try. Pet Peeve Alert! These are many-word recipe titles, yes the descriptions are nice, but I think many-word-titles are pretentious.

Cherry Tomato Polenta Tartlets with Basil Mayonnaise
Roasted Beef Tenderloin Wrapped in Bacon
Mahogany Beef Stew with Red Wine and Hoisin Sauce
Proscuitto-Stuffed Pork Tenderloin with Mushroom Sauce
Julienne of Sesame Carrots and Celery Root
Summer Rice Salad with Feta, Citrus, and Mint
Spinach and Radicchio Salad with Mushrooms and Cashews

There are also a lot of desserts, but I’m pretty happy with my current dessert repertoire.

For this blog, I decide to try “Romaine Salad with Chipotle Dressing and Warm Queso Fresco”. I am looking for a tasty and color-contrasting side dish for a Mexican meal. My menu plan includes shredded-beef enchiladas (using my own homemade enchilada sauce) and cheater’s chile rellenos. This green salad with a Mexican flare fits the bill.

Here is the original recipe:

I made a few changes in the original, and am shortening the name. Below is my version.

Romaine Salad with Warm Queso Fresco
serves 2, but easily multiplies

2 ounces Mexican queso fresco cheese, cut into 4 wedges
1/2 cup cornflakes, finely crumbled
1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
olive oil for brushing the cheese
2-3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (for the salad dressing)
1 teaspoon bottled hot sauce (I used Cholula)
1-2 teaspoons lime or lemon juice
dash of salt and sugar
romaine lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces, enough for 2 people
optional: tomato and avocado slices

Mix the cornflakes and oregano and season with salt and pepper to taste. Brush each cheese wedge on all sides with olive oil, then roll each in the cornflake mixture, coating completely. Place on a lightly oiled baking sheet and bake at 400˚ for about 5 minutes. The cheese wedges should be hot and softened but not melted.

Meanwhile, whisk together the oil, hot sauce, lime juice, salt and sugar in a small bowl. Toss with the romaine and plate. When the cheese wedges are ready, put them on the romaine salad, along with avocado and tomato slices (if desired).

Note: you can coat the cheese wedges and make the salad dressing ahead of time and pop the cheese in the oven just before serving. This is great if you are entertaining.

My photo of the salad is below. Yes, the plate is half-empty! My hot enchiladas and chile rellenos were still in the oven.

I’ll make this little salad again. I like queso fresco, and it’s easy to find in most any supermarket these days. It was easy, and added just the flare that I wanted to my Mexican meal.

250 Cookbooks: Country Cakes

Posted on December 22, 2013 by admin

Cookbook #48: Country Cakes, A Homestyle Treasury. Lisa Yockelson, Harper and Row, Publishers, New York, 1989.

It’s good to be back to my cooking blog! The townspeople of Lyons, and myself in the Lyons outskirts included, are beginning to recover physically and mentally from the September flood. Time to again take up my favorite pastimes.

And what a sweet way to do it: Country Cakes! This book was a present from my aunt and uncle to my mother for Christmas, 1989. My mother always wrote these remembrances on the inside cover of her cookbooks. It’s almost Christmas again, and I smile thinking of my mother.

I first picked this cookbook from the shelf looking for a recipe for a very rich cake to make on a small scale for one of our good meals during the holidays. You see, both our kids are off in other parts of the world this Christmas, and our own brothers and sisters are in California and Hawaii. So there’s just us two. But it’s still Christmas, and we can eat something very, very rich on Christmas, that’s the rule.

To my surprise, this cookbook does not have many over-the-top rich cake recipes. Instead, it has recipes for a lot of cakes that are right up my healthy alley. Apples, bananas, nectarines, blueberries, sweet potatoes, carrots, raisins, and nuts abound as ingredients in Lisa’s recipes. Sure, the cakes are still high in calories, but they pack some nutritional punch. On the downside, the recipes call for butter rather than a “healthy” oil, and are generous with it; they use regular flour instead of whole wheat. On the upside, these cakes will taste great.

Each day, you should eat at least a bite of something that makes you stop whatever you are doing and say “wow!” That’s my new year’s resolution.

Mother tried and liked “Chocolate Pan Cake with Chocolate Fudge Frosting”. This is one of the recipes in the book that is very rich. (But it’s not my choice for this blog.)

The book has a cute layout, with each recipe covering two pages, decorated with illustrations. Each recipe is introduced with a friendly note.

Almost each cake in this book is made with a basic procedure: “the fat, usually butter, is beaten for several minutes before a measure of sugar is added in stages and thoroughly combined; eggs and flavorings are then mixed into the batter completely; finally, a sifted or stirred mixture, which contains leavening and salt and any spices being used, is added to the batter alternately with a liquid, such as milk, buttermilk or cream.” I learned this method in my mother’s kitchen, and every from-scratch cake baker to this day still uses it. Easy as cake!

The categories of cakes in this cookbook include: back porch cakes, coffee cakes, traveling cakes, upside-down, cakes, pound cakes, fresh fruit picnic cakes, little cakes, and cake and ice cream. I want to try the Marbled German Chocolate Cake, Coconut Layer Cake, Peach Upside-Down Cake, Blueberry Gingerbread, Raspberry Coffee Cake, Banana Coconut Coffee Cake – and more!

I had a sweet potato lurking in my potato bin that was asking to be cooked, so I decided to try the “Walnut-Sweet Potato Coffee Cake”. Instead of a rich dessert cake, this should be a sweet, moist and fragrant treat for these cold holiday mornings.

I would call this a “quick bread” rather than a cake. The distinction? In my mind, I think of quick breads as breads baked in a loaf pan and intended for breakfast or snacking. But I won’t quibble.

This recipe calls for a 10 x 3 1/4 x 3-inch loaf pan. I have tons of loaf pans, but none that size. I went to a local kitchenware store and couldn’t find one there either. A quick web search pulls up only 10 x 5-inch loaf pans. (Why did the author choose such an unusual pan?) So, I did a volume calculation and decided to use an 8 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan, although I knew this size might be a touch too small.

Walnut-Sweet Potato Coffee Cake

For the cake:

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (freshly grated if possible!)
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (if you use salted butter, cut the added salt in half)
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons finely grated orange rind
1 cup cooked sweet potatoes, pureed (I probably used 1 1/4 cups)

For the topping:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Cook the sweet potato and mash or puree it; measure 1 (generous) cup. Lightly grease and flour a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan. Turn on the oven to 350˚.

Sift (or stir) together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and ginger.

Combine the topping ingredients, crumbling the mixture together with your fingers until the butter is broken own into small bits. Set aside.

Melt the 4 tablespoons butter and place it in a large bowl. Use a spoon or a hand mixer to beat in the sugar and the brown sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, blending well after each. Add the milk, vanilla, orange rind, and sweet potatoes. Stir in the flour mixture and the 1/2 cup walnuts.

Turn the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the top, pressing it gently down into the batter.

Bake at 350˚ for about 45 minutes, or until it tests done with a toothpick or cake tester. Let cool in pan at least 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack (see my note on inverting the cake in my comments).

Comments

This coffee cake is delicious. I baked it in a smaller loaf pan, though, and the topping fell off when I inverted it onto the cooling rack. It did not look pretty! In my version of the recipe, above, I suggest using a larger loaf pan and pressing the topping into the batter before baking. And then, after cooking, carefully cover the cake with perhaps foil while inverting it to get it out of the pan.

I might try this in a square pan next time. That way, I could serve it right out of the pan and avoid the inverting step. A crumbly topping is always going to fall off when a cake is inverted! Another option is to skip the topping and cook it in a smaller loaf pan. Tough decision, because the cinnamon-walnut-sugar topping gives a burst of flavor, making me say “wow!”.

250 Cookbooks: Crock-Pot Cookbook

Posted on October 12, 2013 by admin

Cookbook #47: Crock-Pot Slow Electric Stoneware Cooker Cookbook. Rival, Kansas City, Missouri. No publication date given.

This small pamphlet is the original instruction book that came with my mother’s first Crock-Pot. My guess is that it was published about 1972, based on the research I did on Crock-Pots for my Electric Slow Cooker Cookbook post on slow cooker apple butter. Rival Crock-Pots were first introduced to the American public in the early 1970s.

I enjoy this passage entitled “A note from our Rival Home Economist”, on the inside cover of the booklet:

“In all my years of experience I have never enjoyed such interesting and rewarding months as those spent testing this revolutionary slow cooker!

All of us are mighty interested in nutrition, flavor and economy. Well, you’ll certainly get the best of all three with your Rival “Crock-Pot.” Better flavor than you could ever get by boiling or frying. Slow “Crock-Pot” cooking is an excellent way to retain more vitamins, juices and minerals. You’ll be thrilled at the tender, tasty meals you can serve, using less expensive meats. “Crock-Pot” cooks all day for about 3 cents. What better way to conserve electricity – and save food money, too!

Forget about watching meals as they cook. Forget about that little question: “Will everything and everybody be ready at the same time?” Enjoy yourself while your “Crock-Pot” turns out perfect meals – unattended. Imagine this: during tests I actually simmered chicken and vegetables continuously for 30 hours – of course, far longer than necessary – yet they were still intact and actually good.

You will love having the “Crock-Pot” in your kitchen. It promises to be quite a change from what you’re used to. For enjoyment at its best, as a starter, may I suggest pot roast or Swiss steak. Just don’t be afraid to leave it alone for 10 hours. With the “Crock-Pot” in the kitchen, you don’t have to be there.

The recipes in this book represent the many categories of foods you can prepare with ease and confidence. Because the “Crock-Pot” is so versatile, you’ll want to adapt some of your own favorite recipes. I’ve prepared a guide to make things simpler for you.

Have fun cooking with your “Crock-Pot” Slow Cooker! For whatever you use it, it will save you time and give you better flavor.”

-Marilyn Neill, Home Economist, Rival Manufacturing Co.

The whole pamphlet is written in this friendly style: it was fun to read! When I first retrieved it from my bookshelf, I thought I’d try a recipe and then recycle it, but in the end I decided it was interesting, friendly, nostalgic, and useful enough to keep. It has a still-useful guide for adapting your current recipes to slow-cooker versions, and several interesting recipes. My mother made notes on the Boeuf Bourguignon recipe, Coq au Vin, and Pot Roast of Beef recipes. Currently, my “go-to” cookbook for slow-cooking is Cover and Bake (from Cooks Illustrated); I will tuck this little cookbook-pamphlet inside that book and enjoy it again.

I decided to try “Boeuf a la Flamade”, or “Beer Braised Beef. Briefly, a beef stew. And I have been making beef stews for years, sometimes on the stove top, sometimes in a covered casserole, sometimes in a slow cooker. I generally brown the meat first, to add flavor. This recipe does not call for a browning step. What the heck, it’s worth a try, and saves time and a messy pan. I like the inclusion of bacon and beer: how can you go wrong with that combination?

Here is the original recipe:

I think that a pound of mushrooms is overkill, so I will use only the 8-ounce package that I have in the refrigerator. I like to use a cross-rib roast for stew meat, and the one I bought is only 3 pounds, so my version of the recipe reflects this change. I’ll use less salt, too.

Beer Braised Beef
serves about 4

3-4 pounds cross rib or chuck roast, cut in 2-inch pieces and trimmed of fat
1/2 cup flour
1-2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3 strips bacon, cut in small pieces
10-12 whole small onions, peeled*
1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced
12 ounces beer
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon vinegar
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme or use a few sprigs of fresh thyme
1 bay leaf

Mix the flour, salt, paprika, and pepper in a bowl and roll the beef cubes in it until they are all well-covered. Put the onions, bacon, and half of the mushrooms in your slow-cooker, then add the floured beef cubes. (I added the floured cubes and also the rest of the flour mixture because we like our stews thick.) Add the rest of the mushrooms. Mix the beer with the sugar and vinegar and add to the pot. Add the thyme and bay leaf.

Cover and cook on low for 7-9 hours. Check at 7 hours because it will probably be done.

*An easy way to peel small onions is to put them in boiling water for three minutes, then drain and rinse with cold water. Cut off the ends and the peel will pop right off.

Comments

I set my slow cooker to “low” and checked it at 7 1/2 hours and it was done: the meat was tender, the gravy thick, and it was starting to stick to the pot. Perhaps today’s slow cookers have a different low setting, or maybe it’s just mine. Anyway, I suggest checking the stew after it has cooked 7 hours on low.

Here’s my prep:

And here is the stew:

This turned out great, and I will make it again. The bacon gives it a flavor reminiscent of “little piggies”, a dish I make from round steak slices rolled around pieces of bacon. I like this recipe because it does not include carrots and potatoes, vegetables that in my opinion get overcooked in the slow cooker. To save calories, you could fry the bacon first and pour off the fat before combining with the meat. I served it over mashed potatoes; it would also work great over rice or noodles. This recipe made enough for two meals for the two of us; I froze half for a quick and yummy meal sometime in the future weeks.

Below is a scan of the back cover of this small cookbook. I like it because it shows my first crock pot in the upper left photo, the exact same color and size. Also note the phrase “makers of Click ‘n Clean CAN-O-MATICS”.

250 Cookbooks: Spices of the World Cookbook by McCormick

Posted on September 23, 2013 by admin

Cookbook #46: Spices of the World Cookbook by McCormick. Mary Collins, Home Economics Director of McCormick. Produced for McCormick by Penguin Books, first published 1969, my copy is reprinted 1972.

The Spices of the World Cookbook was one of my favorites for years. My copy is old and tattered and many of the pages are falling out. But I only marked one recipe and there are few food stains on it, so I probably used it mostly as a reference or for ideas. Since it is produced by the spice company, McCormick, the recipes are all nicely seasoned. It’s an interesting cookbook to have around, but it is not a current favorite of mine.

The recipe I used a lot – and will use again – is the one for pickle relish. I so enjoyed making dill pickles a few weeks ago that I’d like to make relish too.

For this blog, I chose a recipe for Waldorf Salad. I remember these from childhood, but I’m not sure I have ever made one myself. I originally planned this to accompany focaccia sandwiches prepared in my Foreman’s grill. But the weather had another plan. It rained, and rained. Lyons, Colorado flooded, and we lost power, so no grill pan sandwiches.

In spite of our power outage and then the flooding and destruction of the roads to anywhere from where we live, I forged ahead with the Waldorf Salad. Luckily the batteries in my camera were charged, and the salad was a simple preparation requiring only a knife, no power equipment!

Here is the original recipe, scanned in from the book:

I made a half recipe and it lasted us for a couple days. It stored fine in the refrigerator.

Waldorf Salad
serves about 4

1 1/2 cups diced apples
1/4 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
2 tablespoons raisins
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated lemon peel
1/8 teaspoon dry mustard
1/8 teaspoon ginger
dash of mace
dash of cardamom
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 cup mayonnaise (I used low-fat mayonnaise)

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix. Taste and adjust seasonings, if necessary.

Comments

This was good. What really made it spring to life was the cardamom. I did not have ground cardamom, but I did have cardamom seeds, so I grated a little of one seed into the salad. My mace was ancient; fresh mace would probably have made it even better.

I will definitely make this salad again. It’s a nice salad to accompany sandwiches, and is also a good treat at any time.

250 Cookbooks: Just Peachy

Posted on September 7, 2013 by admin

Cookbook #45: Just Peachy Peach Cookbook. Judith Ann Bosley, L. E. B. Inc., Boise, Idaho, 1993.

This cute little cookbook is one of my favorites. For the shape and the title and the memories, probably more than the recipes. I bought it at the fruit stand in Lyons back in the 1990s, when there used to be a fruit stand in Lyons. Each July through September, the fruit stand purveyors regularly brought peaches over the pass from their orchards on the western slope (of the Rockies), peaches that were tree-ripened and delicious. Peach varieties ripen at different times, so first we’d get flamin’ furies, then redhavens, reginas, rozas, red globes, suncrests, and finally cresthavens. That was the sad time, because it meant the season was at its end.

I love peaches. Mostly I like them plain and natural. So juicy that you have to go outside to eat them. This year, I searched out the best Colorado peaches at county Farmers Markets and natural food stores. My first were in August. They greeted me with their aroma early one Sunday morning:

Of course I bought more than we could eat right away (that’s just the way I am) but that doesn’t worry me. When I get too many, it’s time for a peach fest: peaches over ice cream, peach cobbler, peach pie, peach crisp, peach jam, and peach muffins. Thanks to my Just Peachy cookbook, I have added a new recipe to my peach repertoire: Peach Bread. That recipe is below.

Just a few quick notes on the other recipes in this cookbook. Many are for desserts that I probably won’t make, but I noted and might try recipes for: coffee cake, oatmeal muffins, peaches and pork tenderloin with cilantro in tortillas, peach glazed cornish hens, peach chutney, and peach butter.

Here is the peach bread recipe that I am basing my own on. This photo illustrates the cute layout of the book:

I am cutting the recipe in half, substituting brown for white sugar, and using half whole wheat pastry flour instead of all white flour.

Peach Bread
makes one 8×4-inch loaf

1/3 cup oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 small eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped fresh peaches (2 or 3 peaches)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or use all all-purpose flour)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Beat the oil with the sugar a minute or two on high, then add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla, then mix in the peaches with the mixer on low.

Stir together the dry ingredients, then add with the nuts to the batter, mixing on low speed and only until all of the flour is incorporated.

Bake in a greased and floured 8×4-inch loaf pan for 1 hour or until the bread tests done. Let cool a few minutes in the pan before removing to cool on a wire rack.

This was excellent . . . enough said.

Note added June 2014:

I had some nectarines that needed to be used in cooking. So, I made this recipe for Peach Bread, substituting nectarines for peaches and baking as muffins. It made 8 muffins, and I baked them for 22 minutes at 375. Very good!

Patty's Cooking Blog

Category Archives: 250 Cookbooks

250 Cookbooks: A Treasury of Bake Off Favorites

250 Cookbooks: Knudsen Recipes

250 Cookbooks: Vegetarian Planet

250 Cookbooks: Hamburger & Ground Meats Recipes

250 Cookbooks: 1989 Best-Recipes Yearbook

250 Cookbooks: Bon Appétit Best Entertaining Recipes

250 Cookbooks: Country Cakes

Walnut-Sweet Potato Coffee Cake

Comments

250 Cookbooks: Crock-Pot Cookbook

250 Cookbooks: Spices of the World Cookbook by McCormick

250 Cookbooks: Just Peachy